Zen Groove Arkest will be performing at Living Arts College, Friday, August 7, 2015 at 7:00PMFind out more here.

The Zen Groove Arkest is a music collective that experiments with multiple genres to create soundscapes for the ear and soul. The group’s name is a combination of how the music was originally described as “Zen groove” music and “Arkest” is an homage to the eternal Sun Ra and his Arkesta.

Living Arts College Valedictorian Graduates Justin and Kristina Fick (husband and wife) attended a V.I.P event at The Museum of Science Fiction in Washington D.C. The museum officially opens in 2017.

Justin and Kristina have been creating videos documenting an installation piece for the museum from the science fiction book “Eon” written by author Greg Bear. Janet Phillips, professor at Living Arts College composed and scored the music for the videos as well.

Sou Vannavong, a graduate of Living Arts College, recently attended the Electronic Entertainment Expo, commonly known as E3, in Los Angeles, California. E3, is an annual trade fair for the video game industry, presented by the Entertainment Software Association (ESA). It is used by many video game publishers and accessory manufacturers to reveal and advertise their upcoming games and game-related merchandise. Sou is the environment artist working for Red Storm and Ubisoft entertainment, a world renowned studio known for amazing game franchises such as Far Cry and Ghost Recon. Sou and his team were at E3 showcasing their latest projects such as: Tom Clancy’s “The Division”, RainbowSix “Siege” and many other titles developed by Ubisoft and Redstorm. While attending, Sou had the opportunity to learn about the new technologies and games being developed, from the latest titles to be released by Nintendo, to the latest updates from Microsoft, he also had the chance to meet some amazing people like Steven Yeun, aka Glenn from the Walking Dead, who had stopped by the booth to check out “The Division!” Tom Clancy’s “The Division” is set to release on March 8th, 2016, check out other titles on Redstorm and Ubisoft’s websites. #UBIE3 #WeRise #TheDivision

Dijonnaie Gonzalez, Living Arts College’s lead Student Ambassador, Started working as a part time employee at Insite Solutions LLC located in Wake Forest, NC in February of 2015. Dijonnaie is pursuing her Bachelor’s Degree in Interactive Media here at Living Arts College and is set to graduate in September. She found out about the opportunity through the Professional Services Department. Insite Solutions LLC is a company that specializes and is the industry leader in Lean Manufacturing. Lean is how a company manages their warehouses to a certain regulation by law. It allows for production to happen safely and proficiently through safety floor signs and strict protocols. Dijonnaie works as the social media coordinator for the company and is also responsible for managing any graphic design projects. She has worked very hard to improve her skills as she gets closer to graduation and will be hired as a full time employee after receiving her degree!

Living Arts College is always excited to hear about what our Alumni have been doing since graduating from the college. Occasionally, they like to stop by and check in to see whats new on our state of the art campus. Jason Campbell, one of the very first graduates way back in 1998, visited the college while he was in town on some personal business. Jason took a tour of the campus and spent some time speaking with Ben Parks, Rich Ponte and Kwame Hawkins of the animation department. Jason has built and amazing portfolio since he began his journey. He worked at Disney in Los Angeles for a time before he landed a position with Weta Digital. Jason worked at Weta Digital for about three years and during that time he worked on feature films like The Hobbit, The Wolverine and Superman. Recently Jason has moved to Vancouver, Canada to work for Rainmaker Entertainment. Everyone here at Living Arts College would like to thank Jason for stopping by and we look forward to hearing about more of his success in the future!

Living Arts College may have just out done ourselves on the best Professional Development Day yet. We offered our students a day of education through fun, team work and building relationships along with more than a few goodies they could win. We began the events with a morning show that emphasized how to save money while shopping on a budget. The Staff and faculty all participated in a comedy skit to illustrate what to do and not to do on an interview. This was a crowd pleaser as we had “the clueless”, “the jerk”, “the slacker”, “the know it all” and the “the perfect candidate”. Of course, I could not resist an opportunity to join the fun by playing “the clueless” smacking gum, talking on her cell, worse candidate ever role.

After the laughter settled down, we had a seminar educating students on the best ways to obtain financial aid. We used the skills taught during the day to tie in with another fun event to help the students understand costs with a game of “The Price Is Right” LAC style.

As a final caveat, Student Services and Professional Services provided and served lunch on our famed red carpet using the budget tips taught in the seminar. Days later we are still hearing accolades from the students, staff and faculty about this Professional Development Day.

We are particularly proud and excited that local businesses also participated in the event by volunteering and donating their services to make this such a great day! There was more than even enough prizes provided by Living Arts College and the community donated enough for everyone attending to win anything from gift certificates to art supplies.

Living Arts would like to thank the following for their most generous donations of gifts to this event: Papa John’s Pizza, Subway, Target, PDQ, Miltons’s Pizza, Jerry’s Artarama, Marquee Cinema’s, Moe’s Southwest Grill, McDonald’s Corporation, Gamesturz, Game Stop and many others.

Living Arts Alumni Chris Koch has made great strides to make his way into the film industry and has taken a step in the right direction by landing a position with JBO Productions. Headquartered in Tampa, FL, JBO Production is a full-service production company focused on the outdoor lifestyle. In addition to creating full-length television shows and national commercials, JBO offers production consulting, field production, and other services. JBO’s award-winning production team stays ahead of the curve with the latest technologies, techniques, and practices.

In 2010 Chris received his Associates Degree in Digital Filmmaking from Living Arts College. During his second quarter at the college, Chris was in a terrible motorcycle accident and suffered from several injuries. This posed a challenge for Chris as he had lost his memory and knowledge of film amongst other things. This was not enough to stop him from achieving his goals and he began to re teach himself everything he had forgotten and more. While in the midst of dealing with his accident and pursing his dream, Chris had the opportunity to work with the band Aerial Down on one of their music videos being shot at the Living Arts College. The producers of the video spotted Chris’ natural talent and offered him an internship to work at their company! Chris jumped at the chance to work with industry professionals, he began his internship with cane vision working as a cameraman for the games from 2010 to 2014. At the same time, he began working with UNC Chapel Hill both in house and in the field to film all of the sports events. He has also received several awards; a Telly award for “sick” music video by Airial Downas director and a Telly award and Ava award for hurricane warning by Airiel Down as cinematographer.

With his success mounting up, Chris took a shot at producing a video for Redbull Media. He and his crew spent four days filming and editing until the video was ready to be submitted. Chris and his team were successful in giving Redbull Media exactly what they were looking for. Later on Chris submitted his resume to the producers at JBO Productions, seeing his success, they knew they wanted him on their team. Now Chris is working on his own TV Series due to Air in July called Huntfool, a show about the biggest and baddest Hunts that hunters wait their entire lives to participate in. Recently, Chris traveled to Key West, FL to film professional Spear Fishing, he had the amazing opportunity to swim with dolphins in the Gulf of Mexico and was able to get some incredible footage of the local marine life. Chris is excited about how things are developing and is on his way to a very successful career in the film industry. Congratulations Chris, we wish you the best!

Living Arts College goes beyond the classroom to teach our students about their prospective careers and industries. Recently our instructors organized several field trips for their classes to show the students what they may experience in the work place and ways to tie in their crafts. Our Interior Design students recently were invited to tour Mosaic Tile to learn about different styles and textures of tile. While there, the students were also provided lunch and an opportunity to ask questions. Our Interior Design Instructor, Gregory Eitelman is always coming up with clever events to keep the students motivated and help them to see how their hard work pays off. The Interior Design students also took the grand tour of Whitley Furniture, the staff at Whitley took the time to pull fabric and materials to show what all could be done with creativity and knowledge. While an onsite visit to A&G Granite the students learned about marble and granite and all of the artistic applications of the materials. A tour with A Hoke Limited not only provided knowledge about fabrics, materials and colors but also gave the ID crew the opportunity to speak with recent grad Lizzy French. An earlier post about Lizzy and her success since graduating can be found right here on My Creative Mentor.

Another exciting field trip was arranged by Janet Phillips for our audio students. They toured Hemisphere Recording Studios owned by James Lugo. He showed them examples of his work and answered questions about the industry. James is always willing to get the students and graduates involved in his various projects. He has even participated as a Guest Speaker her at Living Arts College, talking about the music industry and how to be successful.

We would like to thank all the businesses that have taken an interest in our programs and dedicate their time to help educate our students. It truly is amazing to see so many companies devote their time and attention in helping our students get a better feel for their prospective careers and life after college.

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Living Arts College is always proud to announce when our alumnae obtain that perfect industry position, or as in the case of Lizzy French, not only did she sink the perfect position for her skills, her personality and work ethic aided her in achieving two promotions within just a couple of months of each other!

Lizzy began working at A Hoke Limited, Trade Showroom in August of 2012 as an intern. She worked her way up from the warehouse floor by folding fabric samples, unpacking furniture, pulling fabric and getting wallpaper samples for interior designers and colorizing all the new fabric. As she became more comfortable in her role, management discovered she had the perfect sales demeanor and customer service skills to help their designers coordinate fabric and pick out designs for clients. Her knowledge and ability to work with designers and supervisors was exceptional.

In less than 3 months, she was promoted to Warehouse Manager, a promotion that changed her hourly rate form $8 an hour to $25,000 a year! She continued the same responsibilities and added a few new ones, she even delegates new tasks to the other interns, the job she most recently held.

Just a few weeks ago, Lizzy’s bosses requested she work at Lee Industries Showroom at the High Point Market. She spent 5 days walking up and down 3 flights of stairs giving tours to existing and prospective clients documenting their interest while continuing to market new products.

Lizzy was such a natural, it is hard to believe that she literally had to learn the industry from start to finish in such a limited amount of time. She is finally in her element and continues to develop, grow and learn her craft. We could not be prouder of Lizzy for a job well done, soon even her salary will increase as she once again takes on more responsibility. Just to think, she started out as an intern and is now a valued member of an international team of designers.

Hat’s off to to you Lizzy as you continue to grow and expand in your knowledge and career!

Living Arts College recently had the pleasure of having Director of the Nashville Chapter of NARAS Alicia Warwick, and 2 time Grammy winning producer Shannon Sanders, (India.Arie) visit for an impromptu master class on the music business. The participating students had the opportunity to network with the industry professionals and to ask them key questions about the craft. Associate Professor Craig Brandwynne, (a voting member of the Grammys), invited Warwick and Sanders to talk after a networking event in downtown Raleigh. We are very fortunate to have all of our professors involved in not only the education of our students, but the industry as well. LAC prides itself on having the students experience real World projects as well as the fundamental education they receive here in our programs.